JS Frontends are like Desktop Apps
I noticed a trend recently, among developers, that we need to learn how
to work with JS frontends. Obviously, it's great that people want to
improve their skills, but is it really something new that we need to
learn?
I suppose, that many of us at some point have been working on a desktop application. Was it a Java Swing app or a .NET Windows Forms or maybe Delphi app, doesn't matter that much.
What's important is that a JS frontend is very similar to a desktop applications.
Yes, they are not completely the same, we can do a few things that are easier in the browser than on the desktop app. Those differences don't influence the way we architecture the JS apps.
If you haven't had a chance to work on a desktop app then you're missing a lot, but still, it's much better to read about the desktop patterns, than to try the new shiny JS framework.
Published at DZone with permission of Andrzej Krzywda, author and DZone MVB. (source)I suppose, that many of us at some point have been working on a desktop application. Was it a Java Swing app or a .NET Windows Forms or maybe Delphi app, doesn't matter that much.
What's important is that a JS frontend is very similar to a desktop applications.
Yes, they are not completely the same, we can do a few things that are easier in the browser than on the desktop app. Those differences don't influence the way we architecture the JS apps.
If you haven't had a chance to work on a desktop app then you're missing a lot, but still, it's much better to read about the desktop patterns, than to try the new shiny JS framework.
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)
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Lance Semmens replied on Tue, 2012/07/24 - 5:09am
I think it's worth noting that many javascript UI frameworks do not take SEO into account. In other words, choose your UI framework carefully if you want your site to appear in google search results.
The best UI frameworks gracefully degrade when javascript is switched off. This means that web crawlers can crawl your site and also helps with accessibility. This requires a bit of thought to initially render a web 1.0 style page and then use an onload() script to decorate the page with fancy widgets and AJAX etc.
Mark Unknown replied on Tue, 2012/07/24 - 11:24am
in response to:
Lance Semmens
Fernando Franzini replied on Tue, 2012/07/24 - 1:27pm